


Numbers Game

by trascendenza



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-26
Updated: 2010-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 21:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Leo knew she was different right from the beginning, when she tilted her head to the side and laughed and it hadn't even hit him until three days later that he was being handled.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Numbers Game

**Author's Note:**

> Late to the game, but I'm slowly making my way through Season 1 of this show and even though I'm sure this will get contradicted by canon later it was itching to be written.

Veronica Mars was not the kind of girl Leo ever thought he'd end up with. Not to say she was a bad sort, or anything like that, because she was just the opposite -- she was so amazing that sometimes he couldn't even believe she gave him the time of day. It was just that Leo usually ended up dating women who were like him: steady, reliable, the ones who rode the waves instead of created them. Comfortable sort of people, the ones you liked to have around to hold down the fort while the big shots went out to take down the bad guys.

Leo knew she was different right from the beginning, when she tilted her head to the side and laughed and it hadn't even hit him until three days later that he was being handled. She liked to present herself as a transparent, flimsy teenager but everything with her was like a one-way mirror -- she could examine you at her leisure but all you could see was a flat, reflective surface that never told you who was really behind it.

In the first three months they dated, he'd had to learn the hard way that at a moment's notice he had to be ready for her to: a) run away, occasionally with a cryptic explanation before her heels were tapping the ground but often she was too wrapped up to even come up with one of those, b) ask him for a completely random, somewhat (okay, totally) illegal and unexplained favor, c) smile at him, brilliantly, and pick up the phone because she'd just performed some marvelous feat of deduction which could finally put to rest those questions that had been eating at her throughout their entire date, evidenced by the amount of times that she said "that's so _funny_ " when he hadn't been telling jokes.

Sometimes Leo minded not having her full attention, but in general he knew that's just the way it was when you wanted to be around one of the wavemakers. That was the thing about her, too, was that when you were in her sights you _felt_ it, like a deer framed in headlights. Her vision was targeted and focused and a lot more intense than Leo was used to; the first time she looked right at him as she slid down into his lap it took everything he had not to lose it right there, and when she breathed his name in his ear he did. She was supposed to be the kid but she made him feel sixteen again. When they celebrated her eighteenth at the beach with her toes dancing in the full moon water it felt anachronous, like there was a mixup in the timeline and it should have happened a long time ago.

So maybe it was for the best that he usually, at best, had about twenty percent of her attention. He wasn't sure he could handle a hundred percent all the time, wasn't sure the surgeon general would recommend that kind of prolonged exposure. And the way he saw it, twenty percent of amazing was still amazing, which would probably piss off his eighth grade math teacher but that guy was an asshole anyway, so it was actually a win-win.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Leo asked, running his fingers through her hair.

"Hmm?" Veronica said, looking up from her phone. She smiled, leaning back into his hand a little. "Oh, nothing." She closed her phone.

"Just as I suspected," he said, pitching his tone like she'd been doing something sinister but in a teasing sort of way. She tilted her head up to shoot him a quizzical look.

"What do you mea--"

"Nothing," he said, leaning down and kissing her, because he wouldn't even know where to begin.


End file.
